Altogether, the globe was a remarkable achievement, an enclosure cut out of Time, sealed away from everything external. After all of these millennia, its frictionless machinery still created a mimetic projection that even the most modern instruments could not distinguish from the background of dirt and rock.
“The Sisterhood must acquire this place intact!” Lucilla kept saying. “It’s a treasure house! They even kept their family’s breeding records!”
That wasn’t all the Harkonnens had preserved here. Teg kept finding himself repelled by subtle and gross touches on almost everything in the globe. Like that clock! Clothing, instruments for maintaining the environment, for education and pleasure — everything had been marked by that Harkonnen compulsion to flaunt their uncaring sense of superiority to all other people and all other standards.
Once more, Teg thought of Patrin as a youth in this place, probably no older than the ghola. What had prompted Patrin to keep it a secret even from his wife of so many years? Patrin had never touched on the reasons for secrecy, but Teg made his own deductions. An unhappy childhood. The need for his own secret place. Friends who were not friends but only people waiting to sneer at him. None of those companions could be permitted to share such a wonder. It was his! This was more than a place of lonely security. It had been Patrin’s private token of victory.
“I spent many happy hours there, Bashar. Everything still works. The records are ancient but excellent once you grasp the dialect. There is much knowledge in the place. But you will understand when you get there. You will understand many things I have never told you.”
The antique practice floor showed signs of Patrin’s frequent usage. He had changed the weapons coding on some of the automata in a way Teg recognized. The time-counters told of muscle-torturing hours at the complicated exercises. This globe explained those abilities which Teg had always found so remarkable in Patrin. Natural talents had been honed here.
The automata of the no-globe were another matter.
Most of them represented defiance of the ancient proscriptions against such devices. More than that, some had been designed for pleasure functions that confirmed the more revolting stories Teg had heard about the Harkonnens. Pain as pleasure! In its own way, these things explained the primly unbending morality that Patrin had taken away from Gammu.
Revulsion created its own patterns.
Duncan took a deep swallow of his drink and looked at Teg over the lip of the cup.
“Why did you come down here alone when I asked you to complete that last round of exercises?” Teg asked.
“The exercises made no sense.” Duncan put down his cup.
Well, Taraza, you were wrong, Teg thought. He has struck out for complete independence sooner than you predicted.
Also, Duncan had stopped addressing his Bashar as “sir.”
“You disobey me?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then exactly what is it you’re doing?”
“I have to know!”
“You won’t like me very much when you do know.”
Duncan looked startled. “Sir?”
Ahhhh, the “sir” is back!
“I have been preparing you for certain kinds of very intense pain,” Teg said. “It is necessary before we can restore your original memories.”
“Pain, sir?”
“We know of no other way to bring back the original Duncan Idaho — the one who died.”
“Sir, if you can do that, I will be nothing but grateful.”
“So you say. But you may very well see me then as just one more whip in the hands of those who have recalled you to life.”
“Isn’t it better to know, sir?”
Teg passed the back of a hand across his mouth. “If you hate me . . . can’t say I’d blame you.”
“Sir, if you were in my place, is that how you would feel?” Duncan’s posture, tone of voice, facial expression — all showed trembling confusion.
So far so good, Teg thought. The procedural steps were laid out with a precision that demanded that every response from the ghola be interpreted with care. Duncan was now filled with uncertainty. He wanted something and he feared that thing.
“I’m only your teacher, not your father!” Teg said.
Duncan recoiled at the harsh tone. “Aren’t you my friend?”